Ferns on Canvas

I took a break from fabric this week and played around with gooey stuff. I'm not even sure I can tell you how I made this piece, but I love it, and I'm attempting to do it again. This piece is 11x14 on canvas. I started out by applying a gorgeous teal blue tissue paper to the canvas, and then added some layers of paint. I used matte gel medium to build up some texture and impressed a fern foam stamp into that. This took a couple of days to dry. Finally I washed some green and rust paints on the piece, let it dry again, and then rubbed some iridescent paint over the top. There might be some other steps I've forgotten - who knows! I just kept adding to it until I got the results I was looking for. I'm just hoping it wasn't a fluke and I'll be able to accomplish similar pieces again ... stay tuned ...

Storm at Sea

If you go back to my Feb 11th post, you will see how far this has come. Even I was surprised at the change! I painted shadows in the water and darkened the sky (significantly). I added another rock to the right hand side, which I think brings better balance and excitement to the piece. When I first started painting the sky fabric, I got a thick streak of pearl paint on it (over on the left side) and I could not paint over it for anything, so I decided it looked like a shaft of sunlight cutting through the stormy sky and I quilted it to accentuate that. The piece (minus the black) measures 11x14, and at this point I am intending to frame it in a black frame (or mat it in black, if I want to frame it larger). That's why I laid it down on some black fabric for the photo. I really love how the border turned out. I took a fabric that had colors similar to what were in the piece (OK, it was a batik that also happened to have zebras on it ... but that's our little secret!). I layered an aqua sheer over the top (same sheer that I layered over the sandy area, and then I fused a bunch of "Tintzl" together to lay around the edges. I spray basted the three layers together, trimmed it to size, and then centered my water piece on it. I stitched the water piece down, close to the edge, and glued the sequins on to cover the seam. I auditioned a couple of different types of black ribbon as well, but I really liked the sparkle of the sequins. Truth be told, I didn't leave enough of a seam allowance around my piece to stitch the borders to it, but I honestly think this was a better solution and I would use it again - no seam allowance to worry about! I can't even begin to tell you how thrilled I am to have finished another piece. Yay, me!

Falling Leaves

Such an original title, I know...

I finished my leaf quilt. Well, at least I think I am finished with it. I love the beaded fringe across the bottom. The pieces that are stitched on with yarn are embossed pieces of old CDs. Fun to do! I'm pleased that it is FINISHED. Click on the photo if you want to see it close up!

Books!

My friend Susan got this list from Bibliomaniacs blog. I love to read, although I don't read too often, because I tend to get so engrossed in my book that the rest of the world falls away for a while. Often, I'm just not sure what to read. This is a great list! Hopefully a few more titles will be changed to bold type in the future.

Look at the list of (100) books below.Bold the ones you've read.Italicize the ones you want to read.Leave blank the ones that you aren't interested in.Movies don't count.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible (Only parts)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller) *half-bold because I read half, but couldn't get through it!
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones' Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
Consider yourself tagged!

Cave Painting

Remember Miro??? Well...I sort of stalled out on that painting, and decided to move in a different direction. I chose, instead, to replicate a cave painting on fabric. The piece measures about 5.5" x 6.5", with the center painting a little less than 4x5. My inspiration is a detail of the cave paintings at Lascaux, France. I used Lumiere and Setacolor paints, and Shiva Paintsticks to build up texture on the fabric. I hand seed-stitched the background for texture. Click on the photo if you want to see it close up. I made three paintings - all the same - two to trade and one to keep. YAY!

My New Journal

Check out the gorgeous journal I received in my trade! I just love it, and those of you who know me, know that the bright colors are right up my alley! I want to thank Barbara in Ohio for creating this beautiful journal for me. I'm going to keep my new art ideas in here. What a gift!

Click on the picture if you want to see it close-up. The buckle is just an amazing detail.

Back to Creating

Time to put some more art on the board! This is the start of my final piece for the Self Expressions class. Of course, I signed up for part 2 of the class, so there will be more to come. I didn't want to lose my momentum!

I am planning to change the border a bit and extend the striped fabric to the corner (I meant to do that, but cut it wrong). I'm also thinking about curving the edges, but we'll see how it develops.

I made the leaves using the same technique that I used in the stained glass postcards that I posted a photo of earlier. I am really enjoying this technique and have decided to continue to develop it further.